Luis Enrique

Maybe it was good that this happened now. Our flaws were exposed against a big team but we should still get out of the group. Its better that it happens now rather than against either of the Madrid sides or the in knockout phases. It remains to be seen if Lucho will be able to address these issues sufficiently but at least they have been exposed early on and allows him to work on them.

Made bad decisions last night and the team isn't cohesive in some aspects (control and buildup in midfield being the most daunting). It'll take continuous tweaking and adjusting to get the system working perfectly. His biggest mistake last night was obviously with MAtS and probably Masch as well. The poor games of individuals (Alba/Alves/Busi) he can't account for in a one-off basis. There hasn't been a trend this season for all three of them fucking with our form consistently and in cases, all three have been vital for our success.

People get way too rash with this 'we won't succeed this season' mantra. It took Ancelotti well up until March to get his 4-3-3 offense/4-4-2 counterattack system working perfectly and it won them the double. It took Heynckes years to elevate Bayern to their juggernaut machine. Pep's first season didn't start out as a tactical breeze either. This is a relatively new setup from recent years and it'll take time to gel. Having problems and bad areas does not make this a 'bad situation'. We'll grow and get to a more efficient approach.

Flavia said:

Something else is that Alba and Alves shouldn't both start in big games. Mathieu as LB would give more solidity at the back.

Click to expand...

They could start, but they can't attack at the same time. And that's exactly what they did against PSG. Lucho is showing some mistakes that go beyond the lack of experience. I'm starting to wonder if he's good enough to coach such a complex - from all points of view - team as Barca.

CuleLife4Life said:

Thats true but we shelled out 154 for players who were worth that amount meaning we should be seeing drastic improvements.

Although I do agree La Liga is our best bet right now. CL is a whole other ball game with teams who, quite frankly, right now are better than us with better managers than Enrique.

We got lucky with Pep but Peps don't come aorund too often. We need to give Enrique time to figure things out.

Click to expand...

Not really when 80 million of that hasn't arrived yet...

Sorry but I can't help myself thinking that we sold in the summer two highly rated players, a creative playmaker in Fabregas and an explosive wing player in Alexis. Two months later and we suffer in those exact same spots. 2-3 years ago we had Thiago, Cesc and Xavi, 3 playmakers right there. Now we have just an old version of Xavi, and no Cesc and no Thiago.

In games like the one yesterday, the likes of Cesc and Alexis would go on to be invinsible 9/10 times.

The problem is tactical. If you are saying that Cesc would have been great or needee yesterday being out wide and covering for Alves then I don't get it, BUT I believe Alexis certainly would have been better than Pedro....

DonAK said:

In games like the one yesterday, the likes of Cesc and Alexis would go on to have their worst games 9/10 times.

Click to expand...

Doubt that. Can't play worse then Pedro or Rakitic did. It was a pretty open game for about 70 min. The fact of the matter is that neither Alexis nor Cesc fitted the old Barcelona system. But now, there's a different system.

serghei said:

Doubt that. Can't play worse then Pedro or Rakitic did. It was a pretty open game for about 70 min.

Click to expand...

Saying worst was probably too harsh, edited it out now.

While Alexis would have been better than Pedro, I don't think Cesc would have done better.

It's not like Rakitic is not creative at all, he just can't break the shackles when he has to cover up for a player who is doing nothing but delivering useless crosses most of the time.

DonAK said:

Saying worst was probably too harsh, edited it out now.

While Alexis would have been better than Pedro, I don't think Cesc would have done better.

It's not like Rakitic is not creative at all, he just can't break the shackles when he has to cover up for a player who is doing nothing but delivering useless crosses most of the time.

Click to expand...

Saying Cesc sucked in the 2nd part of every season and that he failed at Barca has become like a tradition here. The reality is a bit different. He wasn't what we needed because we had Xavi. Xavi was the playmaker of this team, so Cesc, naturally, was played in all sorts of exccentric positions, like on the wing or even as a false 9. But now, now we don't have Xavi (sort of), and Iniesta is declining fast and not becoming any younger himself. A double pivot, Busi - Mascherano and Cesc in front of them as a 10, with Messi back as a forward, with Neymar - Suarez on the wings woud've been the best thing for this team.

I see it now. My guess is that Lucho didn't want Cesc because he plans to use the midfielders as cover for the very advanced fullbacks, relying on Messi to make the difference centrally. The thing is Messi doesn't have the required workrate to make it work. Xavi ran 11-12 km. every game, always top 5 in his team. Messi can't even come close to that. Off the ball movement was one of Xavi's fortes. With Messi, it's probably his weak spot.

That would have been great:

serghei said:

They could start, but they can't attack at the same time. And that's exactly what they did against PSG. Lucho is showing some mistakes that go beyond the lack of experience. I'm starting to wonder if he's good enough to coach such a complex - from all points of view - team as Barca.

Click to expand...

It doesn't make that much of a difference whether they stay back or go forward, neither Alba nor Alves are very good in defense

Alarcón said:

It doesn't make that much of a difference whether they stay back or go forward, neither Alba nor Alves are very good in defense

Click to expand...

Alba can be a very good defender on his day and Alves used to be. Last night they were both shocking though. Alba wasn't even caught too far forward much at all, he was positioned back well in defence but they still got around him with ease.

Alarcón said:

It doesn't make that much of a difference whether they stay back or go forward, neither Alba nor Alves are very good in defense

Click to expand...

Alba is pretty good in defence (not last night obviously). The problem is both Alves and Alba got cought because of the system. When you instruct your fullbacks to play that advanced, you must have a rock tight midfield. In the first half we didn't have any kind of controll in the midfield. That possesion stat is lopsided because PSG parked the bus in the last 20 min. of the game. Matuidi, Mota and Verrati ran the show for a big portion of that game. We haven't got superdefenders, that's why we must use the right system. The system was a mess. It made Alba look way worse than he really is.

We looked solid in defence against City on the Ettihad last season, and City was scoring for fun in the Prem. around that time. Why? Because the system in defence was better and because the 4 men midfield (Xavi - Iniesta - Busi - Cesc) controlled the game very well.

Rakitic - Iniesta - Busi didn't control jack shit last night. We had to sub in Xavi to get things going, and that on the base of a tired PSG.

serghei said:

Alba is pretty good in defence (not last night obviously). The problem is both Alves and Alba got cought because of the system. When you instruct your fullbacks to play that advanced, you must have a rock tight midfield. In the first half we didn't have any kind of controll in the midfield. That possesion stat is lopsided because PSG parked the bus in the last 20 min. of the game. Matuidi, Mota and Verrati ran the show for a big portion of that game. We haven't got superdefenders, that's why we must use the right system. The system was a mess. It made Alba look way worse than he really is.

Click to expand...

In theory, having 2 attacking full backs works if you manage to keep the ball but we couldn't do that. Our biggest problem yesterday, and also a very big problem of the last few years, was that we gave the ball away too easily. What Busquets, Alves, Alba did was just awful. You can lose the ball in attack because you still have many bodies behind it who can track back. But you can't lose it in midfield or worse, in defense. That's also why they had so much possession for large parts of the game.

I agree with you that 1 full back should always be behind the ball but I still maintain that neither of them is a good defender, PSG were very dangerous even when both full backs were in defense and almost every attack came from their right because Lucas was totally owning Alba. Alba makes up for his defensive deficiencies with speed, which is of course a good thing, but when he's put against players as fast as him he gets exposed. Either that or he is just extremely inconsistent which would be even worse.

serghei said:

We looked solid in defence against City on the Ettihad last season, and City was scoring for fun in the Prem. around that time. Why? Because the system in defence was better and because the 4 men midfield (Xavi - Iniesta - Busi - Cesc) controlled the game very well.

Rakitic - Iniesta - Busi didn't control jack shit last night. We had to sub in Xavi to get things going, and that on the base of a tired PSG.

Click to expand...

Fully agree, the fundament of a solid defense is controlling the game which we didn't do last night.

Busquets and Iniesta are shadows of themselves for some time now, that's why we couldn't control the midfield.

Just drop them for Masch and Rafinha and be done with it. Maybe they'll motivate themselves warming up the fukcing bench.

Pedro as well, this guy is like a disease.